Beware! You can be next victim of phishing : The Tribune India

Join Whatsapp Channel

Beware! You can be next victim of phishing

CUSTOMER SERVICE:Have you recently received a mail congratulating you for being the chosen one to be offered an unbelievable investment plan with exceptional returns? Think again before you start thanking your stars for landing up with the opportunity.

Beware! You can be next victim of phishing


Indeevar Krishna

Have you recently received a mail congratulating you for being the chosen one to be offered an unbelievable investment plan with exceptional returns? Think again before you start thanking your stars for landing up with the opportunity. You can be the next victim of 'phishing' and could end up sharing your valuable personal information with someone you don't even know. The information gathered through such fraudulent mails is later used by these hackers to break into your personal bank accounts and even carry out transactions in your name, without your knowledge.

Phishing or Vishing (Voice-based) scams are the most feared cyber frauds which have become a major cause of concern globally. The magnitude of cyber security threat looming over the world is massive, with study predicting the global annual cyber crime costs to grow from $3 trillion in 2015 to $6 trillion by 2021. Unbelievably, around 294 billion emails are sent each day around the world out of which around 90% are spam. Of the reported 37.3 million instances of phishing attacks, 88% involved users clicking a link. Every second 12 people online become a victim of cyber crime, totaling more than 1 million victims around the world every day. What is even more alarming is the fact that India ranks fourth with 5% of the total phishing volume worldwide. Country's losses were recorded at $91 million in 2015.

Needless to say, financial gain is one of the prime motivations behind most cyber-criminal activities. In the past few years, India has moved up in rankings for countries with the most number of financial threats, and currently ranks as the 3rd most affected country by financial Trojans. The BFSI sector was the highest targeted sector in January 2016 with 40.2% of all spear-phishing attacks, primarily through malicious spam email attachments. India has seen a rise in attacks targeting BFSI from 11.1% to 17.1% in 2014. Insurance remains one of the most vulnerable industries to be targeted in the BFSI sector. Recently, even the IRDAI (Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India) was targeted by e-mail spoofing by creating fake login ids such as "[email protected]" which look identical to IRDAI's official domain "www.irda.gov.in". The modus operandi of the fraudster in this case was to send fictitious offers of large sum of money by posing as IRDAI official. Such fictitious offers were made in the name of 'IRDA government', 'Insurance Control Authority, Delhi' etc.

To ensure that such fraudulent activities by the means of phishing or vishing are not able to gain success and dupe unaware customers, insurance companies take various steps such as distributing leaflets in all branches where a face to face interaction happens with the customers, various pop up banners are put up on the website homepage and all key pages as the way to educate the inbound customers. For outbound communication with customers, a disclaimer is printed on all engagement mailers sent to the consumers, special disclaimers are sent for any transaction the customers make and educative banners are printed on each envelope and inland letter that is sent to the customers. An automated IVR message warning customers about such spurious mails or calls is also added to ensure that every customer calling the insurance company is made aware of the danger.

While a lot of money is being spent by the government, regulatory authorities and insurance companies to devise new and effective ways to fight the phishing menace, it can only achieve the desired results when customers also take necessary steps by adhering to the guidelines and cooperating with the norms set by various agencies to fight this problem.

Customers should be aware that no legitimate company will ask for personal information such as account information, passwords, verification of security questions etc. They must contact the insurance company directly in case they get a suspicious mail.

Carefully read the company's name from which the mail has been sent as responding to a misspelled company name, might land them straight into the grab of a phishing scam. Beware of keywords like “verify”, “account process” or “update” etc in the communication they receive on behalf of the company.

The amount of cyber damage that the world has witnessed in the past few years is enough to understand that the world is fast changing and has entered a new phase of warfare.  It is important to understand that we are fighting one of the top 10 global threats at the moment and we have to jointly fight tooth and nail against this to ensure that our interests are safeguarded. There is no doubt that if each one of us is conscious enough and aware of the rights and wrongs, this mammoth problem might just become a thing of the past in near future.

The writer is Head - Operations and 

Customer Service, Max Life Insurance. 

The views expressed in this article are his own

Top News

Arvind Kejriwal to be produced before Delhi court today as 6-day ED custody ends

Excise policy case: Delhi court extends ED custody of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal till April 1

In his submissions, Kejriwal said, ‘I am named by 4 witnesse...

Delhi High Court dismisses PIL to remove Arvind Kejriwal from CM post after arrest

Delhi High Court dismisses PIL to remove Arvind Kejriwal from CM post after arrest

The bench refuses to comment on merits of the issue, saying ...

‘Unwarranted, unacceptable’: India on US remarks on Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest

‘Unwarranted, unacceptable’: India on US remarks on Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest

MEA spokesperson says India is proud of its independent and ...

Bullying Congress culture, no wonder being rejected: PM Modi, backs senior lawyers who flagged attempts to undermine public trust in judiciary

Bullying Congress culture, no wonder being rejected: PM Modi

Backs senior lawyers who flagged attempts to undermine publi...

Explainer: Why BJP is flying solo in Punjab and Odisha

Explainer: Why BJP is flying solo in Punjab and Odisha

A multi-cornered contest is always advantageous for BJP; it ...


Cities

View All